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John Smeaton has posted some comments I emailed him the other day on why Catholicism and the pro-life movement go together.

He had to cut things short, since I tend to ramble on when not given a strictly enforced word-count limit.

But I thought it might be worth taking the points along to a conclusion that some in the pro-life world might find uncomfortable. While it is easy to see that the pro-life position must be held by Catholics, and it makes sense that being an atheist would give one some serious philosophical problems with holding the full, comprehensive pro-life position, there are problems that extend in another direction too.

I offer below the rest of my intolerant views on the subject:

Protestantism is uniquely disabled in its fundamentals in giving answers to the abortionist world. The fundamental Protestant principle is that an individual judges for himself what to believe. This is why there are thousands or even tens of thousands of Protestant sects.

Protestantism is a kind of religious entropy, in which the trend ultimately is towards total dissolution, a steady state in which each individual man stands alone with his unique, private interpretation of God. Because of this, a Protestant may take or leave the pro-life position as he wishes. There is no such thing in the Protestant world as a unified, authoritative voice that can say, ‘This and not this, is true.”

Of course, I must add my caveat. I do not say that there aren’t any Protestant pro-life advocates, or that Protestant pro-life advocates are somehow inferior to Catholics as individuals. Indeed, even a brief acquaintance with the pro-life world will quickly disprove such prejudices. But there is no necessity, either logical or juridical, for a Protestant to hold the pro-life position, and no coherent, authoritative voice within Protestantism that tells the individual whether his private judgment on the life issues is correct.

The point is that it can only be as an individual that a Protestant becomes dedicated to the pro-life cause. He has chosen it based on his private judgment that it is a good and worthy thing. No one would ever say, “Protestantism teaches…” in the same way as one would say, “The Catholic Church teaches…”

A Protestant who holds pro-life positions holds Catholic positions. But, because of his Protestant principle of private judgment, he must necessarily hold back on the fullness of the pro-life position when it clashes with his Protestantism. (This is why so many Protestant pro-life groups refuse to answer questions, for example, about contraception. Though we have seen this wall coming down in recent years.)

Catholic teaching on life and family is inextricably connected with its teaching on the Trinity, on the Eucharist, on Mary and the cult of the saints. Nothing can be removed and taken in isolation. This is why its doctrine cannot be changed, as can Protestant doctrine, by committee meetings such as the Lambeth Conference or the Southern Baptist Conventions. Catholicism does not vote on the truth any more than mathematicians vote on axioms.

The pro-life position is one that is based on observation of external moral and physical phenomena. Outside reality, not personal opinion or preference or feelings, must guide, and the Catholic Church’s magisterial authority concerns itself exclusively with this external reality. It does not care what the world says, what its angry, disinformed members say, what the scientific community says. The truth is what it is.

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